EPISCOPALISM. - This is the name given to that Protestant ecclesiastical regime in which the power to consecrate the new ministers of the Church and to perpetuate the sect is held to reside in the bishops alone, who must then necessarily be consecrated with special ceremonies. It does not matter whether there is a higher jurisdictional authority above the bishop (as in England the king or the queen); nor is it enough that the title of "bishop" has been preserved (as in the Methodist episcopal churches), if the bishop has not received the special consecration. Neither the king nor such a kind of bishop can, according to the episcopal regime, ordain new ministers.

The two most important Churches or sects of the episcopal regime are the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States; to which Anglo-Episcopalians have added the Catholic bishops, the Lutherans of Sweden and also the Eastern schismatics.

The Anglicans who live in Italy depend on the Anglican bishop of Gibraltar, and the Episcopalians on the "presiding" bishop of the United States, who governs them by means of an auxiliary bishop who ordinarily resides in Geneva.

On the limited jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canterbury, v. CANTERBURY; on his authority in the Lambeth conferences (v.); on the Anglican ecclesiastical convocations, suppressed in 1717 and re-established in 1854, v. ANGLICANESIMO; BANGOR, CONTROVERSIA di; CONVOCAZIONI; on the various modifications made to the episcopal regime by the Episcopal Church of the United States v. EPISCOPALE, CHIESA PROTESTANTE; on Anglican ordinations v. ORDINAZIONI ANGLICANE.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: Th. Lathbury, A history of the convocation of the church of England, London 1853; R. Phillimore, The ecclesiastical law of the church of England, ibid. 1895; H. Clark Lowther, Constitutional church government, ibid. 1924; Official yearbook of the Church of England, ibid. 1949.

Camillo Crivelli

@incollection{ec5_episcopalismo, author = {Crivelli, Camillo}, title = {Episcopalismo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {447}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/episcopalismo} }

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